Southern Baptist leader admits people are born gay…

...but it's still a "sin" and he advocates taking medical steps to "correct" sexual orientation.

Of course, logically, if people are born gay, it means that God made them that way and it's not a choice and therefore not a sin. To theologically work his way out of that corner, he invokes the "fall from grace".

"Given the consequences of the Fall (first sin) and the effects of human sin, we should not be surprised that such a causation or link is found," he wrote. "After all, the human genetic structure, along with every other aspect of creation, shows the pernicious effects of the Fall and of God's judgment."

This reminds me of some early Christians who believed that God wasn't the creator of the universe, that the universe was made by an evil god and Christians are trying to escape it through the means offered by Jesus. Of course, these Christians were all branded as heterodox (and heretics) and subsequently persecuted out of existence. Perhaps Mohler is trying to bring this theology back?

The rest of the article is here:

For those who don't know, Mohler is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological seminary here in Louisville and was active in working with Dumbson (Dobson) and Focus on the Fascism (Family) in orchestrating "Justice Sunday".

I’m an atheist but I don’t think people are born gay. People are just predisposed to making bad choices in life. It’s all part of being human. It would be like saying some people are born to go to prison. Or born to be drug addicts.

Maybe its the whole nature vs. nurture debate. But I feel it is mainly people’s environments/upbringings which cause them to go a certain way in life. The harsh reality is that most, if not all, homosexuals are molested as children.

Especially in light of Dateline’s “To catch a predator” expose’, it is clear how pervasive child sexual predation is nowadays. I don’t have any problems with gays and I understand how you could be made into one if traumatized as a youth. However, this “born gay” myth has to go.

[quote author=“rogerflat”]I’m an atheist but I don’t think people are born gay. People are just predisposed to making bad choices in life. It’s all part of being human. It would be like saying some people are born to go to prison. Or born to be drug addicts.

Maybe its the whole nature vs. nurture debate. But I feel it is mainly people’s environments/upbringings which cause them to go a certain way in life. The harsh reality is that most, if not all, homosexuals are molested as children.

Especially in light of Dateline’s “To catch a predator” expose’, it is clear how pervasive child sexual predation is nowadays. I don’t have any problems with gays and I understand how you could be made into one if traumatized as a youth. However, this “born gay” myth has to go.

I’m really surprised at this resposne, Roger. Grow up.

I was “born gay”, and I do believe it’s a biologically hereditary attribute. My earliest cognizant thoughts (and I’m talking 3 or 4 years old) are of attraction to other men. I had a very normal childhood, and I was not molested.

Get informed, dude. Think about what you’re saying. You dare to assime that, because it’s in the minority, homosexuality is somehow less biological than heterosexuality? We’re all born hetero and then choose to become homo? Who would choose such a thing in such a fucked up culture as America?

Do you think that heterosexuals choosetheir sexual orientation? How would it be for you if the majority of public opinion assumed that you chose your staight orientation in a hypothetically mostly gay world?

People.ARE.
Born.
Gay.

I know way too many gay people who are sick and tired of hearing this lame shit reasoning.

Regarding child molestation, have you ever considered that gay people, having to overcome the type of bigotry you espouse, have engendered a certain honesty, and therefore might be more likely to disclose molestation experiences than straight people? This might be why it apears to you that gays were more frequently molested as children. Chances are better that there’s an equal distribution and many of the straight people just aren’t talking.

“The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray.”
— Robert G. Ingersoll

I’m an atheist but I don’t think people are born gay. People are just predisposed to making bad choices in life. It’s all part of being human. It would be like saying some people are born to go to prison. Or born to be drug addicts.

I don’t think current psychological theories would bear out your belief. I am not an expert, but my wife is almost finished with her graduate degree in educational psychology so I’m able to give some impressions from her studies second hand.

She recently did a presentation on “gender nonconformity” in young children (as young as 2) and its correlation with homosexuality. The findings are quite striking. A quick google search on “gender nonconformity” yielded many links like this one:

This is not thought to pertain to all cases of homosexuality, and I believe the link between childhood molestation and homosexuality is also being investigated.

From my personal experience, a boy in my neighborhood (now 5) is clearly a “gender nonconforming” child. When he plays with my daughters, he dresses like a girl and always prefers to be a girl character. He prefers girl toys, colors and shows. Words don’t adequately express how much his behavior stands out from other boys his age, and he has been that way since he was 2. There is also no doubt in my mind that he is not being sexually abused.

I would not be surprised to learn, as he grows older, that he is homosexual. And knowing him I can say for certain that, if he does turn out to be gay, it was not a choice.

You might also be surprised to know that there is some evidence that children are born with certain behavior dispositions and that some addictions appear to have a hereditary component. And while neither would cause a person to end up in jail or become a drug addict, it does seem that people are born with traits that only in the recent past we thought were just a result of choices or their upbringing.

If we’re getting into speculation here, the terms “gay” and “straight” are largely arbitrary anyway, since we’re bisexual shades of gray. Kinsey’s research indicates this and as these taboos against same-gender love come down, I think we’ll find this is true.

My personal experience certainly indicates this. I thought I was purely straight until recent years. In retrospect, there were signs that I was bisexual all along but I was successful in both rationalizing and repressing that other side of me. I’ve never been a Christian but was still socially indoctrinated with all that garbage about it being unmanly. Even after my discovery, it took several months to overcome all the irrational feelings of shame.

Had my life taken a different turn, say if I’d married, I might have gone through life never knowing. It makes me wonder how many others like me there are.

As I’ve spoken to other self-described gays and bisexuals, my story isn’t at all unusual. Most bisexuals mistakenly believe themselves to be purely straight at first, only discovering their versatile nature later in life. Even after “coming out”, they still avoid the gay scene and pick partners of the opposite gender. It’s not hard to understand why. Since we’re genuinely attracted to either gender, why not pick the path of least resistance? Who in their right mind would want to live the “gay lifestyle” if they had another option?

I just hope someday these taboos come down and preference over gender is regarded the same as preference for hair color. Love is the same emotion regardless of the body parts involved. Take it from someone who knows.

The harsh reality is that most, if not all, homosexuals are molested as children.

Do you have any actual data to back that assertion up? Link please? It certainly isn’t true with me.

I’m an atheist but I don’t think people are born gay. People are just predisposed to making bad choices in life. It’s all part of being human. It would be like saying some people are born to go to prison. Or born to be drug addicts.

On reflection, I really take exception to the bigotry in this statement. Why is same-gender love being compared to crime or drug addiction? Why does love become evil when the body parts are similar?

Roger, since you’re an atheist, I guess you’re living proof that getting rid of Islamo-Christianity won’t get rid of bigotry.

First, let me just say that I don’t profess to be an expert on any of this. I’m just relaying some information and my impressions may be wrong. But I wanted to add 2 points to the discussion:

1. I thought that Kinsey’s studies, while groundbreaking, have been shown to be very skewed due to the fact that the sample he used was not representative of the population as a whole.

2. My wife also told me about a very interesting experiment concerning the issue of bisexuality that demonstrated that most men who claim to be bisexual are actually homosexual.

The study worked like this:

Homosexual men had their brain patterns measured while viewing erotic material. Not surprisingly, most of the homosexual men were only stimulated by the homosexual erotica.

Then the same thing was done with heterosexual men and, once again, most of them were only stimulated by the heterosexual erotica.

Lastly, men who claimed to be bisexual were studied and, surprisingly, they were largely only stimulated by the homosexual erotica. That is, their responses closely matched those of the homosexual men.

I’m not trying to duck my responsibility to cite sources here. I just don’t have them available right now. I promise to get the proper citations from my wife and post them here. There is certainly a chance that I am misstating the study I’m citing. I just find it so interesting that I needed to post here while it was still on my mind.

I’m no expert (beyond personal experiences) but mom was a psychologist and I remember her making similar observations to the ones you alluded to in your first post on the topic. She said androgynous behavior in children was often a sign that they would grow up to be gay. From the anecdotal evidence of my observations, it does seem there is a correlation between androgyny and sexual orientation.

As for Kinsey, I’m not qualified to say whether or not the study was flawed. It does ring true for me from personal experience, but I recognize the limits of anecdotal evidence. Like you, I’d be interested in seeing other studies done on bisexuality.

However common or uncommon bisexuality may be, it does exist at least with me, that much I can assure you. I’ve heard the either/or theory before (“you’re either gay, straight or lying” was the phrase). I can tell you from personal experience it’s not so. I’ve watched/read a variety of adult material. Whether girl/girl, guy/guy or guy/girl, it’s all hot as far as my reactions go.

If I had to judge, I’d say I seem to lean more strongly toward heterosexuality. All things equal, I do seem to be more easily turned on by softer, slender features. Even when admiring a male body, it’s more often a slender, runner’s physique rather than a broad-shouldered, body-builder type. This may be leftover social programming.

Since when has “gay” or “straight” been a label? Why do we label ourselves and each other this way? What purpose does it have but to separate us and endeavor hate?

The Greeks clearly had homosexual tendencies, the Romans too. In fact in most of the world, some forms of homosexuality are considered good. There are tribes in some of the Indo-China region where young men give the tribe leader oral sex, so that they can drink man-juice to become men. But none of this is considered “gay” or a “life-style” choice. It just simply is.

So why do we as Americans label “gay” and “straights”?

Why does what we do in the bedroom become our identifying characteristic?

There may be some biological/pysiological reasons that people become or are born gay, but those would be uncommon imho. In nature, homosexuality is rare, which is why it is surprising it is so common in humans. Homosexuality is an evolutionary dead end (no reproduction) which stands to reason that we didn’t evolve by being gay, therefore there shouldn’t be any genetic predisposition to that behavior…on a biological level anyway.

I played with dolls to when I was a boy. People then, even now, suggest that I might be gay. I am very straight, however. The little boy who plays with girls and dolls is proof that it is his environment which is making him gay. Its not that there is anything wrong with him playing with girls or dolls, but that is nonetheless contributing to him being gay, among other things. Its hard to tell everything that plays into it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think homosexuality is something that should be or can be changed. I just think we need to be honest about the factors which cause it.

Admittedly the understanding of sexual orientation is truly in its infancy. I do think there is still a lot to learn and there is a good deal of honest misunderstanding even among compassionate and reasonable people.

Homosexuality is an evolutionary dead end (no reproduction) which stands to reason that we didn’t evolve by being gay, therefore there shouldn’t be any genetic predisposition to that behavior…on a biological level anyway.

This appears to NOT be true. A recent study has shown that a man is more likely to be homosexual if he shared his birth mother with older brothers, even if they did not grow up together.

Here’s a link:

The evolutionary implications aren’t yet clear. But I think it can be argued that there would be an evolutionary reason for a male with several older brothers to NOT himself reproduce.

This study also “supports the idea that sexual orientation starts before birth.”

That article is obviously presenting the material in a biased way. Same sex affection is not homosexuality. We tend to antrhopomorphize animal behaviors and apply in human context, but that isn’t necessary in all cases. What would be indicative of animal homosexuality is if we could prove that the animals knowingly seek out members of the same sex and prefer them over the opposite sex for sexual gratification. This would be hard to prove since animals can’t express what they are thinking or feeling.

I do admit that seemingly bisexual and gender changing behaviors are somewhat common. Male dogs often hump other male dogs etc. But gender roles are mainly a human thing within our society. I’m sure animals don’t grasp what it means to be “male” or “female”. And without that understanding how would they know if they were acting gay or straight, and why would it even matter at that point. It would just be part of their natural behavior.

“NobleSavage”]...but it’s still a “sin” and he advocates taking medical steps to “correct” sexual orientation.

Of course, logically, if people are born gay, it means that God made them that way and it’s not a choice and therefore not a sin. To theologically work his way out of that corner, he invokes the “fall from grace”.

“Given the consequences of the Fall (first sin) and the effects of human sin, we should not be surprised that such a causation or link is found,” he wrote. “After all, the human genetic structure, along with every other aspect of creation, shows the pernicious effects of the Fall and of God’s judgment.”

What idiocy. Even if homosexuality were indeed a pernicious effect of the Fall from Grace, that is in fact supporting the idea that it is NOT a matter of choice. And let me remind our fellow Christian brethren that the Fall was not just some unfortunate consequence of having eaten from the Tree. It is a specific curse, a specific chastisement, an explicit verdit pronounced by God. The pernicious effects of the Fall were DIRECTLY caused by God: labor pains, snakes slithering on the ground, eating dust, enmity between the snake and the Woman, the mortality of flesh, etc. If homosexuality is just another one of these pernicious effects, then God intended it! Do these people even bother to use their brains?

This reminds me of some early Christians who believed that God wasn’t the creator of the universe, that the universe was made by an evil god and Christians are trying to escape it through the means offered by Jesus. Of course, these Christians were all branded as heterodox (and heretics) and subsequently persecuted out of existence. Perhaps Mohler is trying to bring this theology back?

Those were the Gnostics, to which I referred in the God is good thread. And yes, they were persecuted out of existence and their books were destroyed as thoroughly as possible, courtesy of the Church. And no, I don’t think that this is what this eminent theologian (sarcasm, anyone) is trying to do. He is just arguing that homosexuality is bad and sinful, even though it is not a matter of choice, and that we should try and purge humankind of it as soon as we are capable to do so.

I know I am biased and all, but frankly, why would anyone want to live in a world in which there are no gay people? I mean, it would all be like… Bulgaria before I left… Eek! I am curious, how many of you on this board think that if it becomes possible to prevent homosexuality through some kind of genetic intervention, we should go ahead do it?

...I was twisting the knife, trying to emphasize the implications of this 180 degree spin that Mohler’s done while still trying to hold onto his concept that homosexuality is a sin. I keep forgetting that voice inflection is lost in this communication medium.

Btw, I think it was more than just the Gnostics. Some of the early sects of Christianity also believed that the world was created either by a lesser god (those who believed that Yahweh was a baser god of this world and not the “true God”) or those who believed it was created by an evil god. All the different sect names run together for me (Ebionite, Marconite, Docetic, etc.) so I forget who’s who.